If you’re looking to get back to sports-car basic, it doesn’t get more simplistic than the 2020 Alfa Romeo 4C Spider. With its full focus on performance, the 4C Spider shuns advanced adaptive suspensions, cutting-edge infotainment systems and even modest creature comforts like heated seats. Heck, it doesn’t even have power steering, and thanks to its lightweight body and tight suspension, doesn’t really need it.

This car is all about going fast, rounding corners and making no apologies for its shortcomings. Alfa 4C drivers consider themselves purists, and anyone who says differently can just go drive an Audi TT, Porsche Boxster or even a BMW Z4. The 4C Spider has one more trick up its sleeve, and that’s exclusivity. There aren’t many around and the 4C’s exotic styling turns heads wherever it goes, which is exactly the reaction you want when dropping nearly $70K on a 2-seat sports car.

Some of the details:

Staggered wheels, 17-inch front & 18-inch rear
Air conditioning
4-speaker Alpine audio
Rearview camera
Rear parking sensors

The Alfa Romeo 4C Spider is the automotive equivalent of a surgeon’s scalpel. As a scalpel is the perfect tool in the hands of a skilled surgeon, a good driver can feel great behind the wheel of this Italian performance car. The steering is intentionally unassisted so it can communicate every inch of road. And so it does.

On paper the Alfa’s turbocharged 1.7-liter 4-cylinder engine’s 237 horsepower isn’t much, but it’s only working against roughly 2,500 pounds. That equates to a genuinely fast car — the Alfa Romeo 4C’s 0-60-mph time is logged at 4.1 seconds — with only a hint of turbo lag.

The 6-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission shifts quickly, and there’s a distinct difference among the various “DNA” (for Dynamic, Natural, All-Weather and Race) drive modes. Yet, like a scalpel cutting vegetables, the 4C is sorely out of its element once you’ve left the racetrack. The stiff suspension pounds over bumps, the engine screams constantly, the exhaust barks like a neighborhood dog, and at low speed that unassisted steering feels like pulling your arms out of tar. This is not a car for commuting or cruising.